Over a hundred federal, state, and local emergency planners from across the country gathered in Portland, Maine, last week to attend the annual conference for the National Association of SARA Title III Program Officials (NASTTPO).

Members of the CAMEO software suite development team (from both NOAA and EPA) were also in attendance to continue gathering stakeholder feedback on potential areas of improvement to the CAMEO suite programs as a result of Presidential Executive Order (EO) 13650 to improve chemical facility safety and security.

The conference kicked off with a day-long training session on either the CAMEO suite of emergency planning and response programs or the Hazardous Materials Emergency Preparedness (HMEP) grants process. The training was followed by two days of presentations and discussions on a wide range of emergency planning and response topics, including lessons learned from a major train derailment involving Bakken crude oil, survey results related to hazmat training levels for volunteer firefighters, chemical safety in schools, learning about explosives storage in your area of responsibility, and regulatory changes and updates. The CAMEO team was able to brief the conference attendees on the status of the EO and also hold a useful discussion session to get feedback on the CAMEO software suite changes proposed by the EO, as well as discussing possible options for improvements to training and outreach to make more people aware of these freely available tools.

For more information, contact Mark.W.Miller@noaa.gov.

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